You know that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore other parts of a house when it comes to staging it to sell. One of the most neglected yet biggest selling features of a home is the garage.

Many homeowners think they can simply close the garage door when they put their house on the market and hope potential buyers won’t notice the clutter or hope they will forgive the mess. But, because home staging is about helping a buyer make an emotional connection to a home, you can’t allow your clients to take lazy shortcuts and hope for the best.

A garage can be a huge selling feature of a property but most garages are kept in a constant state of disorder. Because your goal as a home stager is to have a buyer imagine their life in a home, you can’t ask them to see past clutter because many won’t be able to.

• The first step for staging a garage is to remove all clutter. Help the homeowners to purge and ask them to get rid of anything that doesn’t have to be there. Advise them to donate unwanted items to charity and put any seasonal items they won’t use while the house is listed should be put in storage.

• For items that do need to be kept, put a pegboard up to get tools off of surfaces and make sure there are no piles of clutter on the floor.

• The homeowners can keep their lawnmower, bicycles and paint cans in the garage but make sure they’re organized.

• If it’s been awhile since the garage saw a fresh coat of paint, now’s the time to freshen it up – that goes for walls and the floor.

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Start Your Home Staging and Redesign Business www.decorate-redecorate.com NOW ANYONE CAN START A HOME STAGING AND REDESIGN BUSINESS at Decorate-Redecorate.Com. Courses, books, sales aids, tools, resources, certification, directories, tips. Earn $75-$300 an hour staging and redesigning homes. Visit www.decorate-redecorate.com and www.homestaging4profit.com for more information. Copyright Barbara Jennings, Decorate-Redecorate.com, 2009

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Debra Gould -
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For more home staging tips, check out Debra Gould’s Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. It teaches you how to stage every space in a home and it contains tons of photographs from The Staging Diva®’s own home staging projects and even floor plans to help give you some inspiration.

Articles on home staging or how to decorate a house to sell quickly in a slow real estate market often focus on de-cluttering and neutralizing (unfortunately, often to the point of blandness). There is also much talk of the importance of kitchens and bathrooms, but bedrooms are important too.

The right touches can take a sad room that would never stick in a buyers mind to one that is memorable and says “wow!”

Whether you’re staging a master bedroom, guest bedroom, or child’s room, the bed should be treated as a focal point. Dress it up with an attractive duvet, shams and decorative pillows. I generally get paid for my time to shop for these for a client. We use these items to stage the room they’re selling, and then they get to enjoy them in their new space.

In a master or guest room, if a queen-sized bed makes the room look small, use a double bed instead. Then add one or two night stands of equal height with matching lamps.

Visitors should have a sense of space when they enter the room, so make sure the dresser isn’t too close to the door. Consider also whether some well-placed art might warm up the space.

In some cases, to make the room look larger it’s best to place the head of the bed under a window. When you do this, make sure the window treatments pull everything together.

The image in this article was provided by Staging Diva Graduate Jayne Steuart of Pearl Home Staging and Redesign LLC. She did an outstanding job transforming this 182 square foot bedroom with furniture the home seller already had, color and well-chosen accessories.

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Home Staging is a “hot” buzz word in real estate these days and it can mean anything from painting, minor repairs to renting furniture. Expert Interior Design and Accredited Home Stager Cathy Hobbs shares some of her “Tips of The Trade” when it comes to Home Staging. For more of Cathy Hobbs Expert Design Tips, be sure to check out www.design–recipes.com.

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Debra Gould -
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For more tips to staging bedrooms and any room in a house, check out the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. It includes design ideas for every room and boosting curb appeal too. Plus you’ll find sections on soothing the nervous client, how to differentiate a house from the competition, identifying the home’s target market, communicating your vision and more.

When staging a house to sell, you can’t just ignore a room because it presents a staging challenge, or because you don’t think it would be as important as staging the kitchen or bathroom.

The goal of home staging is to have a buyer make a strong emotional connection with a property and who’s to say their dream isn’t to have a study in the attic or a craft room in the basement?

Your job is to make the property you’ve been hired to stage appeal to as many people as possible. This means you have to pay careful attention to every room of a house because you can’t assume nobody will care what the basement, garage or attic looks like.

If you have a usable attic to work with when you’re staging a house, show buyers how much storage they’ll have when they buy the property. Don’t let the homeowners cram all of their stuff up there to hideit while the house is on the market. Have them move their things into storage and / or donate unused items to charity instead.

• Get piles of stuff off the floor and tucked away neatly in closets and cupboards.

• Repaint the walls if needed.

• If there’s a dusty old carpet on the floor, suggest replacing it with laminate.

• Add lighting so it’s as bright as possible.

All of these decorating tips will go a long way towards creating an attractive and usable space in the attic of a home you’re staging.

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Stage your living to attract homebuyers. Living Room’s are often the first space that a homebuyer views when walking through the front door. First impressions are crucial when selling your home. Start with a blank canvas and start removing everything from the area. Position furniture in a way that shows off the living room’s potential. Maximize space by removing un-used furniture and decor. Add tasteful accessories and artwork that are neutral in color and design. Wow the buyer with your newly staged living room.

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Debra Gould -
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If you’d like more home staging design tips, you should check out the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans written by Debra Gould. It covers every single space of a home and offers advice along with my own before and after photos and floor plans for reference.

Home Staging is preparing your home for sale so that it will appeal to the widest range of potential buyers.   I see the staging process as consisting of two phases – preparation and staging.  The five key preparation steps are decluttering, depersonalizing, repairing, neutralizing and cleaning.  These steps are not optional!  Rather, they are a critical part of the home staging process.  The 10 tips and tricks below will help make preparation quicker and easier.  In addition, all of  these tips are green, so they are much healthier for your family than using the alternative, chemical-based products.

1. Clean your glass windows, doors and mirrors with a mixture of white vinegar and water and wipe with newspaper for a beautiful, streak-free shine. 

2.  Freshen your garbage disposal by putting a lemon wedge in and running the disposal.  This will neutralize odors and create a fresh, lemony scent.  Fresh lemon can also be used to scrub kitchen counters and salt can be added as an abrasive for stubborn stains.

3.  Remove crayon from walls with toothpaste (not the gel type).  Simply put a small amount of toothpaste on a damp sponge and wipe gently, then wipe away any remaining residue with a clean sponge.

4.  Refresh watermarks on wood surfaces by rubbing in a little mayonnaise and then buffing out the mark.

5.  Remove candle wax from fabric by hardening it first with an ice cube and then by chipping away the hardened wax.

6.  Repair small, noticeable scratches on hardwood floors with wood stain magic markers, available at most hardware stores.  Be sure to choose the stain color that most closely matches your current floor stain color, fill in the scratch with color and buff with a soft cloth to blend.   Wax pencils in many wood stain colors are also available for repairing similar scratches on wood furniture.

7.  Shine stainless steel appliances with a small amount of olive oil.  Simply  rub a little on a soft cotton cloth and polish to a shine.

8.  Remove soap residue in your dishwasher by running a wash cycle with a cup of white vinegar added.

9.  Clean stains on your sofa fabric with a small amount of club soda on a dry cloth.  Some stains can be more difficult to remove.  If the club soda doesn’t work, make a paste of 3 Tablespoons Baking Soda and 1Tablespoon of club soda and rub a small amount on the stain with a soft cloth.   Gently rub the cleaner off with another clean soft cloth dipped in a small amount of warm water.  Once dry, vacuum off any remaining residue.

10.  Remove oil and grease stains from concrete driveways or garage floors by sprinkling the stains with baking soda or another absorbent substance such as cornmeal or sawdust.   If the stain is dry, be sure to wet it first to create a paste and then scrub with a stiff  brush.  If this is unsuccessful, try using automatic dishwasher detergent, leave it on for a few minutes and then pour boiling water on it and, again, scrub with a stiff brush.

Tranquility Bay Home Therapy offers Home Staging in Annapolis, MD and surrounding areas.  The Tranquility Bay Step-by-Step Guide to Successful Home Staging is available by visiting:  http://tranquilitybaywellness.com/tranquility-bay-home-staging-annapolis-md.

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Terri Marshall -
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Terri R. Marshall is a Certified Home Staging Consultant, Green Living Consultant, Certified Stress Management Specialist, Certified Wellness Coach and owner of Tranquility Bay Home Staging in Annapolis, MD.  For copies of The Tranquility Bay Step-by-Step Guide to Successful Home Staging and The Tranquility Bay Green Living Guide, visit her website at http://tranquilitybaywellness.com/tranquility-bay-home-staging-annapolis-md.

How important has staging your home become in today’s real estate industry? Realistically, it has become one of the most important steps in any home sale. Viewers have come to expect more in a home show due to the large number of homes that are competing for attention. Many people will suggest the use of a professional home stage, and this is always an option; but you can also achieve some pretty remarkable results yourself if you do some research into the staging game.

Staging is really the art of presentation. The act of taking your home and “tweaking” it so that it will show better and generate more interest then it would if left to its own devices. One of the primary steps to home staging is the removal of anything that could be considered extraneous or might get in the way of the guest’s viewing experience. This is an excellent opportunity to begin your packing a bit early. Things that you may want to remove consist of extra furniture that is not used on a daily basis, clutter from closets and shelves and any personal photos and memorabilia. It may seem to be odd that you would want to remove family photos as these items add a warmth to the home for you, but it has quite the opposite effect on others. It is a glaring reminder of your family, and the idea of the show is to allow others to picture themselves living in the home. Having no family photos and such around makes the process that much easier.

The operative word for home staging is “clean.” During this time, your home should be cleaner than it has ever been before. Buyers are a picky lot, and rightfully so. They are looking to spend a lot of money and they want to get the best quality home for their dollar. A clean and tidy home simply puts buyers at rest as a dirty or messy home can lead them to believe that there may be other areas of the home that are in the same sort of disorder. First impressions are hard to change if they are negative, so make sure that your home has the visual impact that it needs. It will help out the sale process more than you expect!

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Richard Soto -
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Richard Soto is the President of VIP Realty, the premier firm in Dallas real estate. Contact VIP Realty for more information or visit us online at www.viprealtyinfo.com